An Oct. 6 letter writer tells us that the native fish population has dwindled by 70 to 80 percent over the past 40 years, and that we need to do something about it or face the economic consequences.
The letter writer and the rest of us would do well to look beyond the hit our local economy might take and see the big picture. That picture includes, but is not limited to, industrial pollution, rainforest decimation, overfishing, the oil/coal/natural gas industry and mindless, vecordious, fatiferous corporate greed.
Now we have another national election in which one of the two authorized parties has the Environmental Protection Agency in its cross hairs. These pernicious corporate thugs would eliminate the EPA completely, in order to allow free market capitalism to continue its rape and pillage of Mother Earth. When a society decides that the Earth is not sacred, that society eventually cannibalizes itself and dies. Today, fewer fish. Tomorrow, just pictures of fish. Today, a dying planet. Tomorrow, a dead planet.
Until people understand the agenda of the oligarchs who rule our planet, we're doomed to watch our own demise. I only hope that Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, was right when he said recently that 12-21-2012 on the Mayan calendar will mark "the end of capitalism and the beginning of the culture of life."
Unfettered capitalism commodifies everything. Our oceans are not a commodity. They are life itself. Fish are not a Disneyland attraction. They are life itself.
John R. Hall
Kihei
